Delay

It rained all night, snowy peaks blink
at a freshly washed valley in their abdomen.
People squint, hint at their fatigue,
but can’t hide the vacant intrigue of jaywalking
through gawping Sunday roads.

Manholes explode with steam
are flapjacks on the tarmac.
A metallic morning is netted
in the bird bones of naked trees,
licked by the curved tongue of a curb.
The day reflects in rubbered
black galoshes, squashes and disturbs
everything the darkness had assumed,
is aging into noon.

I am here too soon,
squandered in this light, laundered by last night’s
sheets that swirled through thighs and elbowed
plushly pale hellos to our
wallowed limbs on down pillows.
Exposed profiles,
disclosed pieces of nuance,
made a separate peace with consequence,
distilled forgets
with common sense.

This day arriving, scatters,
grows up late,
gathers deadpan jokes, matters of fate.
I fumbling, failed,
derailed, survived the bend
and humbled in the end,
begin
to understand delay.